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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVIII. No. 987 



ment. The national work will always be 

 the backbone of American forestry, not 

 trenching on or interfering with state 

 work or individual efforts but serving as a 

 demonstration of forest management on its 

 own lands, a center of leadership, coopera- 

 tion and assistance to state and private 

 work, a means to handle interstate prob- 

 lems and coordinate the work of neighbor- 

 ing states, a guarantee that national needs 

 which individual states can not meet will 

 be provided for on a national scale. 



Underlying the forestry problem are two 

 fundamental considerations which should 

 be emphasized and reiterated until thor- 

 oughly driven home. One is the public 

 character of forestry. The public has a pe- 

 culiar interest in the benefits of forestry. 

 Both in the matter of a continued supply 

 of forest products and in that of the con- 

 servation of water resources the public 

 welfare is at stake. In each case purposes 

 vital to the prosperity of the country can be 

 accomplished only with the direct participa- 

 tion of the public. Private owners will se- 

 cure results only on a limited scale in the 

 long run on their own initiative. It takes too 

 long, 50 to 200 years, to grow a crop of 

 timber trees. Most private owners in face 

 of fire risk, bad tax laws and uncertain fu- 

 ture markets will not make the necessary 

 investments. Most lumbermen have bought 

 their lands either to log or to speculate in 

 the standing timber, not to grow trees for 

 later generations. Nor will private owners 

 make investments for general public bene- 

 fits, as in watershed protection. If the 

 public "is to secure the benefits of forestry 

 it must take tlie measures necessary to 

 guarantee these results, and it must bear 

 the cost of what it receives. 



Closely related to the fact that forestry 

 is in many aspects a public problem is the 

 second of the fundamental considerations 

 I wish to emphasize. Forestry requires 



stability of administrative policy and such 

 permanence of ownership as will ensure 

 it. Herein lies the difSculty of private for- 

 estry on a large scale. Timberland owners 

 are interested in the protection of their 

 standing timber merely as insurance. Most 

 of them are not interested in forest pro- 

 duction, or in protecting cut-over lands if 

 that involves substantial annual charges and 

 is not necessary in order to protect their re- 

 maining standing timber. As yet the prob- 

 lem of cut-over private lands is unsolved. 

 It is now devolving on the state to aid in 

 their protection from fire in the interest of 

 its own citizens. It will require the utmost 

 resources of state and federal government 

 together to handle this problem of getting 

 reasonable protection of private forests 

 and permanent production of timber on 

 cut-over lands. Stability of policy and 

 permanence of ownership are essential to 

 any successful attack on this great conser- 

 vation problem. 



This principle of stability of policy of 

 administration is a large factor in success- 

 ful handling of public property and has 

 been consistently considered in the national 

 forest work. I am frequently asked as I 

 travel about the country whether I am 

 going to make important changes in the 

 forestry policy. I was asked that very 

 often in 1910, when I first took office. I 

 am asked it often this year. My answer is 

 that what we are seeking is not changes but 

 the development of a permanent public 

 enterprise with consistent and stable pol- 

 icies. The national forests were set aside 

 in the recognition that the bulk of these 

 lands should be handled permanently 

 under public protection and control. Pro- 

 vision was made for the acquisition of agri- 

 cultural lands that might best be devel- 

 oped under private ownership, and such 

 areas are now being classified and segre- 

 gated from the forests very rapidly. The 



